Why is attention span even so important? At a survival mechanism level, shouldn't imediate threat priority assignment be more of value long term than attention span? Since we spend less time focusing on one thing now, maybe our survival performance as a species increased. What am I missing?
Several friends and I had our Steam passwords stollen. Lesson I learned was not to have same password to more than one service because gmail account was hijacked too. The perpetrator stopped at changing gmail language to Polish, thank God. But, damage he/she could have done was much greater. It was before "login attempt from unknown location" messages. It was a drag to bring all back but we did it. The lesson also is: joining any online service/site we must accept the risk anything you provide could be stollen at some point and modify our usage phylosophy of these services.
For an engineer it's quite an anventure throughout your career discovering how many "languages" people speak: imperial, metric, IEC, ANSI, metric thread, NPT thread, all the units and industrial standards. And still foreign ISS parts mate in orbit on their first date. Or ITER parts fit toghether in plant. That's electrifying and inspiring.
I hope Japan is just playing with the Sun Tzu's idea: when far appear near.
They say he hadn't used a computer, but maybe he's a hacker instead.
On more serious note, I also support idea the person in charge has to have medium knowledge of all aspects of the subject he or she is appointed to lead, mixed with basic knowledge of overlapping subjects with the subject at hand, and finally hard earned high level leadership/people skills.
I read somewhere on HN another article about how time management kills productivity, and conclusion was that the best companies integrate idle time in their schedule. The idea is that time is used for processing interrupts.
Interesting points. Keep in mind though, this article is from 1978. Technology and law regulation for reducing dangerous concentrations of gases from flue gases at coal power plants improved since then. I don't know for nuclear. I recently was leading electrical works for new DeNOx (SCR) plant at one coal power plant. Since my country entered EU, the allowable safety margins improved forcing the power plant owners to either invest in purification plants or shutdown by 1st jan 2018.
Her love for me and she didn't go away when I told her I battled psychological disorder (anxiety and depression) in the past. She was the person I could talk any topic with her and she was always on the money with her insightful advice. And she didn't drink alcohol, nor smoke, which is hard to find around here. She was religous and sang in church choir. Since I had a lot of bad experiances with girls in the past, mostly on my part, when I met her I told myself, this time go slow but smart. And it's been best last 7 yrs of my life. We are married for 2 years and when we felt we matured enough to take full responsibility over our lives that was the decision moment to get married.
This "clean" energy sources are nice, but we all know how do we resurect a dead transmission network [1]. Remember EU, Nov '06 [2]. And pray to have water in accumulations. It's all cool, this wind and solar, but it must be strategically globally built to be effective during major blackouts in one part of the globe.
About jet lag and so forth, why not try forget about DST and time zones and use UTC?
There are already people working night shifts and feeding babies :), everywhere, so we can assume, the number on our watch doesn't correlate to a certain mood-I-must-be-in-at-this-hour.
After all, if we ever leave for another planet, having single clock for single planet sure shall make communication easier than having time zones. Somebody always has eye bags.
My anxiety and depression kicked in in 2006, after several triggers coincided. Some that I remember now are: dissapointment in my "friends", my inability to digest some college courses that had been way above my level of comprehension, falling in love with person A, while person B had fallen in love with me, alcohol overdose habit, stopping going to Sunday sermons after being dissapointed with local priest, pressure from my enviornment and myself to be best at everything I do, and so on. After that day X, I spent a whole week in bed, and started to behave strange.
So that left my parents no other option, but to eventually take me to psychiatrist.
When she put me on antidepressants, I started to act even worse.
I wrote and drew on blackboards at college breaks, once asked a profssor in the middle of his lecture " what is time?", I wrote in my sister's chat while she was afk and talked nonsence to she's friends, I started to have all sorts of crazy ideas and I wrote on all walls and furniture in my room.
I can't really know exacly what happened, but my brain started a roller coaster ride between being uterlly depressed to extreme overthinking and I had a thought that I somehow controlled the reality by changing the mood I was in. At the same time all inhibitors were gone.
A part of the feeling I had I can relate to a movie "A beautiful mind". That part of it that scares the uninformed viewer.
So after regulating my treatment, my state become good enough for my parents to send me to the psychologist. Too bad she passed a few years latter. RIP. I mean she was top class. I had about 7-8 90-minutes sessions until my state became a-well-functioning-member-of-society again. My family's support was unprecendented. After a few more months I satrted team gaming heavily. After a year more my psychiatrist removed my therapy alltogether. After 1 more year I returned to church (other one) to youth choir and never had this thing again.
The main thing that kept me alive and sane through my darkest hours was thought that I was once happy, and if God existed, he would not let me perish. This was just a hell one has to go through to get to heaven.
Sorry for being a little off topic, I just wanted to share what had helped me. Oh, one thing, if you are diagnosed with anxiety and depression, hang in there and talk to somebody. It's not permanent. It passes. I wish you the best.
ih
It amazes me how humans constantly have sheer lack of will power to solve some global issues. For example, according to this pie [1], electric car is still a car indirectly running on fossil fuels.
For fun, let's think for a second how much solar panels does it take to power planet Earth.
After rough calculation it's about 496805 km2, which is approximately an area of Spain. This calculation is based on consumption predicion of 198 PWh per year in 2030, and average solar energy of 1000W/m2 with 20% efficiency and 70% sunny days a year. Of course, this is an ideal "world is at peace and there is always somewhere sun shinning" model and it uses today's best available technologies. Storage and transmission system errection would pose a cooperation challenge on a global scale. Just morning food for thought...
It's nothing surprising. I hope we are all aware the controlling few are slowly but surely putting their agenda of total control to action. I've seen an attitude of some Rockefeler fellow in the movie Zeitgeist, who stated when asked what is their (rich people that control the world) goal, why do they grab more even though their families have more money that we could guess:
"Well, out final goal, is to implant a chip i every human being. That chip will be radio controlled. And when we don't like that person anymore, we push the button and the person die."
Now, this may sound cruel, but I agree with this guy. The smart, rich and capable people should have this kind of "swift justice contoll" of other people because most of people that I know, waste their lives. When you give an average person the freedom and power, most of them will not know what to do with it, and they would end up in corruption of the soul. They would turn bad, looking for hedonistics. Maybe, my country is just above average filled with "I don't know how to productively use my God given blesdings and learned skills" kind of people.
Cheers
I.H.
Croatia, both coast including islands (there is 1k of them, many uninhabitted) and in land. I recommend Velebit, Papuk, Brac and of course Dubrovnik archipelag.
someone smarter than me said: teaching is not filling a cup. teaching is lighting a fire.
i still remember how some teachers sucked at knowledge, and/or knowledge transmission to students. math is actually pretty easy if it is explained to you in a words you understand. i think feynman said it.
some of best teaching i've seen is walter lewins mit 801 and 802. it's available on mit ocw. it's not just about teaching but also lighting a fire of students' willingness to start to learn for themselves . and always teach via example (sokrat, i think).